Israel admits ‘grave mistake’ after Gaza bombing kills seven aid workers– but charity demands full inquiry

Israel has admitted making a “grave mistake” after its forces killed seven aid workers in a drone strike, insisting officials believed a Hamas gunman was among the unarmed convoy.

In an unusually swift four-day investigation, it concluded that a charity worker carrying a bag was mistaken for a man holding a gun. Blaming poor communications and attention to detail, it promptly sacked two of its officers.

But Israel’s efforts to draw a line under the attack, which prompted global outrage and renewed calls for the UK and the US to cease all arms trade, fell short as politicians and humanitarian organisations demanded a full independent inquiry.

The World Central Kitchen charity, which employed the dead aid workers, and foreign secretary David Cameron both called for a more comprehensive probe. The charity’s founder said that “the IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza”.

The deaths triggered a wave of international condemnation and shone a fresh spotlight on the dire conditions that Gaza’s besieged population is suffering from in the embattled enclave.

The results of the Israeli investigation came as:

The seven aid workers, who included three Britons, were returning from coordinating an aid shipment in central Gaza on Monday night when their three-car convoy was struck.

Yoav Har-Even, a retired military officer who led the Israeli inquiry, said there were two main areas of wrongdoing. Firstly, Israeli officers failed to read messages telling them that cars, and not aid trucks, would be taking the workers away from the warehouse.

As a result, the cars that were targeted were incorrectly identified as transporting members of Hamas.

The army also blamed a major who identified the strike target and a colonel